Friday, January 23, 2009

You should read it: Panna Nikt (“Miss Nobody”) by Tomek Tryzna

“During the years that I used to roam our local library for any book that was even remotely gay, I stumbled upon “Panna Nikt” (Miss Nobody) by Tomek Tryzna (1994).

Panna Nikt is a Polish coming of age novel about a fifteen-year-old girl named Marysia who moves from the Polish countryside to the big city where she befriends Kasia and Ewa.

Marysia is very sweet and naive and both girls take advantage of this fact, playing weird (mind) games with her, toying with her emotions and basically being very intense and cruel like only teenage girls can be.

Marysia first befriends Kasia who is obsessed with art and being creative. Kasia shows her a world of music and art and all it involves, which is such a stark contrast to the life she has lived before which only revolved around family and religion.

They start playing weird kind of games, or more precisely Kasia totally plays Marysia, to the point where Marysia has had enough and ends their friendship. Instead she starts hanging out with Ewa, who just happens to be the person that Kasia likes least.”